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The fever for the sublime - part 2 of 2

STORYTELLING

The future of the indie Auteur

Has film become culturally irrelevant?

Recently, Paul Shrader of the Taxi driver fame has spoken out what he thinks about the state of film. More specifically, he pointed out that Film as a storytelling medium is no longer culturally relevant. What Paul means by Film is the iconoclastic cinema made in the US in the 70s or the tradition of the intellectual European cinema. Simply put, Cinema as a work of Art.

I do believe a lot of what he is saying is right. And I would like to take a closer look at the impact the social media has had on the movie going public, the entropy of the intellectual cinema due to the market forces and the perpetual problem of monetization of a work of art that cinema should be.

And where is the story/cinema auteur in all of this? Is there a future for us, or will we be facing ever harder times with a steadily diminishing public.

But not everything is doom and gloom. I see clearly the emergence of a few trends which will change the way we make movies in the coming decade. And I believe this coming 10-15 years will bring forth new ways to tell stories, unlike anything we’ve seen before, and it will be more accessible than it has ever been before. All of this will have a major impact on the Auteur Filmmaker/Storyteller. In the most profound way.

Let’s go!

The entropy of the story

I think what Paul Shrader is communicating is both provocative and most probably highly unpopular. Especially amongst the hardcore artistic establishment which has so much vested interest in upholding the status quo.

But no matter how much wishful thinking and positivity we invest into this matter, the net is having such a profound impact on our perception, that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to turn back the clock.

Mr. Shrader makes a perfectly valid point, net’s all encompassing nature has given us access to the whole world’s catalog of films. All of this with barely a flick of the finger. How many thousands of hours of beating can our conscious/subconscious mind take before it screams from nausea and begs us to stop? Is the media overload unavoidable in our times? How many Narcos, House of Cards, The killings, can our brain assimilate? All of them amazing mini-series in their own rights, but when the occasional binge becomes a full-tme habit, what then? Are we destined to become media junkies without any harder fix around the corner?

It’s not only the sense that we’ve seen everything. Every possible configuration of the story.

But it’s also the social media’s immediacy, the constant interaction, around the clock availability, and general amount of noise which it generates. This is so intense, that I believe our patience has deteriorated into a five year olds kiddo. And this kid has no idea what good manners are. Being plugged into the matrix, 24/7, is not only giving us our fix, but it’s also rewiring our brain, psychology, perception of reality, and what goes with it, our behaviour.

As the tempo of our lives is accelerated, so are our expectations of the next short snippet of story or anything that will amuse us, frighten us or just jerk us into tears. Unfortunately, this bombardement of our senses and emotions also leads to numbing down of our sensitivity.

We not only demand more, but we become full-baked connoisseurs of the cinema. And when that doesn’t work, we throw fits, and unload our fury all over Facebook why the latest movie didn’t give us the instant gratification we expected from it.

So where do we go from here? How can the artist hope to flourish and satiate the insatiable audience? Are there any alternatives in the near-future?

“True social interaction in Virtual Reality can be created in two ways: A. multiplayer interactions connecting live users synchronously, and B. through true AI actors that interact and respond naturally based on the user’s nuanced interactions and cues. (I’m referring to pure, deep AI in this case, not the simple AI of playing against the game itself, which is quite common today).” – Jacob Mullins – “VR + AI: the very real reality of virtual artificial intelligence”

The emergence of the new Auteurs

I believe that no matter how you look at it, film will always be prohibitive because of the costs involved. I should know, I am a filmmaker, and after many short films, I am now preparing my feature film debut, an indie film on a small scale budget.

No matter how you look at it, all of the production costs add up very quickly, and unless you are aiming for a low quality, b-movie type of thing, you need professional and skilled actors who understand and feel the psychology of your story’s characters.

You need a small team of trusty people around you, and for them to be consistent, and dependable, they need to be paid so they don’t have to worry about paying their bills for a month, or even two.

Taking into account all of this, film means investement, and often also involves high risk. With no firm guarantees for succces, ciritical or financial success.

But I believe that how we make movies will potentially change in the nearest decade. They will not be done as live action, but rather fully digitally. With the help of highly sophisticated A.I. agents to generate these new kind of stories, they will be amazingly visual, they will represent uncanny worlds, and will be done only by a handful of people, if not even a single person.

And since this will be done with a much smaller team than even a low budget movie, they will become accessible to many more budding creators. And thus might also become a very personal experience. Just like books have been, and will always be, a one man’s vision.

How is this possible? Let’s take a closer look.

“Film is a medium where someone can share the story of an experience, whereas Virtual Reality is a medium where you can give someone an experience that they can generate their own stories from.” – Eric Darnell – Baobab Studio

Building and inhabiting the Virtual World

I come from a professional 3D animation background where we used 3D software Maya to design the world, the character’s, the textures and finally the animation. It was all done in a highly painstaking manner, designed, modelled, skinned and animated by a number of people to output the first norwegian 3D animated TV series (1998-2000). It’s been almost twenty years since we did that series, but the process hasn’t changed dramatically since then.

Of course there is better software, higher quality renders, real time tools like Unreal Engine which are going the VR route now. But for the most part, the approach and design philosophy is still the same. And what goes with it, the incredible amount of time it takes to arrive at the finished product. High-quality 3D animation.

Take a tool like Unreal Engine, where you, after importing the models, have to painstakingly specify all the interactive rules of the world. Although quite accessible, even to a non-programmer, it’s still an arduous process, to specify all the what ifs, and don’ts of this world.

But I belive this is about to change. With the advent of A.I., and a “What You See is What You Get” WYSIWYG approach, a small team, or even a single person, will be able to create worlds unlike anything we’ve seen before.

I believe that these tools will evolve, into high-level, easily accessible and intutive front-ends. And this will make it possible to build enourmous worlds without an army of highly specialised people.

Take a look at the evolution of HTML design. WordPress is one example where the focus, and necessity of coding, has been lifted away by such front-ends as the Visual Composer or Divi Builder. Both of them allow a WYSIWYG approach to HTML-design. This allows a speedy process, without any guesswork, of the design for the website. And if you want complexity, you can at any time dig deeper into the code, in any of the modules of these front-ends.

One can argue that the process of designing a 3D world, building the models with artistic integrity and texturing them with flare, rigging and skinning the models for animation, is so much more complex of a process. And yes, it certainly is, but this is where Artificial Intelligence algorithms will do the heavy lifting in the very near future.

These agents, which will be under the hood of every sophisticated software, will make possible a new form of communciation between the storyteller, and the tools creating the world.

Imagine the real world, now. A dialog between the production designer and the Film Director on their next project. The Film Director brings to the table the characters, the story, and how to tell it visually. While the Production Designer does everything possible to support this story, and the characters’ psychology, through the space they inhabit. Both of them have a back and forth dialog, where often the Production Designer, brings some moodboards, sketches and inspirations. Ideally the Film Director will give feedback to the Production Designer, what works, what doesn’t, and why. When they have homed in on the final design, the Production Designer will manage a team of people to realise that vision.

And now replace the Production Designer with an Artificial Intelligence agent, akin to Apple’s Siri, but inherently way more sophisticated. This agent will take propositions from the Director, or suggest something of its own accord. And then it will adjust the models, the textures and the 3d characters, all in real time, based on the Director’s input. Fine level control will always be possible, but I think the tools will get there, that it will be lightning fast, to change the physique of the characters and the appearance of the surroundings.

Change the character’s skin color, make her just a little bit older, give her more freckles on that side of the face, give her a summer dress and a hat. Now take this character and put her in this scene of where she been in a mild car crash. Rip up her clothes, give her scars, here and there, and so on and on. All of this done in real time, in a conversational manner, in VR space.

Ultimately, I am not saying that the modeler, the texturer and all these noble, and highly specialized jobs will become superfluous. Far from it, but with the use of these highly evolved A.I. agents, the coarse part of the job might be both greatly simplified, and accelerated.

“This is a sophisticated audience that processes multiple streams of information faster than ever before, and craves a deeper connection to the content that can be shared across social profiles. The virtual experience is the new theatrical experience, whereby the 21st century viewer is unable to distract themselves with the second (and third, and fourth) screen. Here exists an outlet to control and capture their undivided attention. A new means for escapism.” –

Redefining the narrative

I’ve looked at the visual side of this potential narrative. And although this represents a huge challenge, I believe that the biggest hurdles are the narrative itself, and the characters’ psychology populating this story. How openy or closed do we tell the story? How much control do we give over to the person experiencing this dramatic narrative?

Just to get this out of the way first. There will be countless approaches to the narrative itself in VR. But what I am interested, and will propose, is sometimes labeled as “The Participant Active” experience.

What this means is that the person enjoying this story exists in this world as a character, and influences her own story, as well as the world around her. Yet this is done in a framework of a story’s structure. For convenience sake, just let’s use the classic 3-act structure which has an inciting incident, several psychologically crucial turning points, and an ending.

Let’s talk about the structure. This will be created by the dramatic spine of the story, a 3-act structure. Even though an A.I. agent will steer the characters and the turning points in this story, it will become an artform in itself, to predefine this story. A deep understanding of storytelling and its careful planning will be just as important as ever.

In other words, what kind of characters and their traits, do I need to accomplish a certain kind of story?

For example, let’s take a look at a thriller narrative and its structure. This type of genre is driven by the antagonist with the main protagonist mostly doing the reacting. Actually the whole structure of this kind of story is the master plan of the antagonist.

So for this purpose, I need an antagonist which will drive this thriller narrative in such a way, that he will always extort, pressure, and use whatever means to get what he wants, with predefined methods. And at each major turning point he will drive our main character into even more intense dramatic action. Until it will climax in a final stand-off, where the protagonist will either win or not.

The creation process of this story would be done again in a coversational manner with an A.I. agent who would represent the characters itself. It would be a learning process. And just as within the movie “Her”, a woman A.I. springs to life and grows, so would each of the storyteller’s characters evolve into mature A.I. beings, who would then interact with the human participant in the narrative itself.

Growing the appropriate characters for this story, or any other kind of story, will become a crucial part of the development process.

And just as important as predefining this story correctly, so will be finetuning it.

I imagine the author/VR director would playtest out his story many times and would look at the different outcomes generated by the character interactions. He would lock down on some predefined dramatic spines, and tweak the characters and the story points, until he arrives at a certain amount of possible story ednings. The main point being is that the turning points and the possible, and finite outcomes would be wholly controlled by the human Auteur. This is to keep the artistic integrity of this work as personal and pure as possible.

The future reinvented

And to come back full circle to the current state of film. Especially the social media, and how it is evaporating the attention span and the filmmaker’s potential public.

I think as technology progresses, the public will demand much more than a passive experience. It goes without saying that Facebook’s success is based on humans’ need for mutual interaction. For the millenial generation who is always hooked up, active and interacting with each other, I believe that passive mediums which require focus, reflection, will become a thinbg of the past. Surely there will be the ones uniquely interested, but they will be a minority.

Eventually it will come down to two sorts of storytelling experiences, one inhabited by human players who interact, and share an experience, or a story. And the second one where they will interact with intelligent, emotional A.I.’s specifically constructed to drive forward a certain narrative, preferably predefined and created by a skilled human storyteller.

And when this will be solved in a believable and natural way, it will create new forms of narratives, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

Just imagine an Amazon Kindle format, available for the masses, just as readily as Amazon`s book format is, but in VR and populated by intelligent, quirky, fascinating characters, and incredible flexible, real-time processed narratives, with visuals just as stunning as the latest Valerian or Marvel Comic cinema behemoth. But all of this done with the most unique personal integrity, and sensitivity that only a single artist can accomplish.

The ultimate Auteur.

“Suddenly one day some little fat girl in Ohio is going to be the new Mozart… and make a beautiful film with her father’s little camera-recorder, and for once this whole professionalism about movies will be destroyed forever and it will become an art form.” – Francis Ford Coppola

This blog post is a part of the Design Blogger Competition organized by CG TRADER. Link to the competition: HERE

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Piotr Ryczko

Story and Design

Piotr Ryczko is the published author of the Scandinavian thriller “A child made to order” and a multi-awarded filmmaker. Born in Poland and raised in Norway, he loves both countries, but has a soft spot for his hometown, Oslo.

Piotr loves to hear from readers and writers and can be found on Storygeist where he writes flash fiction, html5 stories, non-fiction and screenplays for his films.

STORYTELLING

Narratives of the past, present & future

The future of the Auter filmmaker

Where is the story/cinema auteur’s place in the next decade? Is there a future for us or will we be facing ever harder times. I believe the coming decade will bring forth new ways to tell stories, unlike anything we’ve seen before, and it will be more accessible than it has ever been before. All of this will have a major impact on the Auteur Filmmaker/Storyteller. In the most profound way.

ha(V)en

Ingrid and Silje, mother and daugther, two seemingly perfect lives, intertwined in a deep, loving bond. But their connection is about to be broken when Ingrid one day is told by her daughter she has to leave her, or her mother will die. Why does Silje have a precognition of the future, one which seems to be coming true? Why is Ingrid dying? And what is ha(V)en?

When does a mother/daughter bond become an addiction, toxic and filled with attachment? And can there be a solution in the future, a magical technology, which will ease our grief? Help us work through these seemingly impossible emotions? Or will it be just an escape hatch, an easy way out, just so we don’t have to deal with what’s truly inside us?

Clunky words, fuzzy images

There are quite a few stories around the web which explore the subject of adapting a novel into a screenplay, and ultimately film. What I would like to do is to take a look at these issues from my personal experience while writing my debut novel, “A child made to order”. I would also like to share with you some of the differences which are inherent in these mediums. And how a screenwriter/author might marry two such differing approaches in order to write a finely crafted Story.

Rene v3.2 – part 2

“Rene v3.2” – a short story about a female robot companion. A woman made only to fulfill other’s needs. Seen through Rene’s eyes, the story takes the worn cliche of the dangerous Artificial Intelligence, and turns it on its head. It asks if A.I.’s will be able to replace true human relationships? Especially the ones of the intimate kind. How might we treat them? How will the Robot Companion react emotionally? What rights will she have if abused? And what is the nature of consciousness? The very thing that defines a human.

Rene v3.2 – part 1

“Rene v3.2” – a short story about a female robot companion. A woman made only to fulfill other’s needs. Seen through Rene’s eyes, the story takes the worn cliche of the dangerous Artificial Intelligence, and turns it on its head. It asks if A.I.’s will be able to replace true human relationships? Especially the ones of the intimate kind. How might we treat them? How will the Robot Companion react emotionally? What rights will she have if abused? And is she less of a human if artificially made?

The emotional core of the story – part 2 of 2

Last time, I concluded at how important it is to arrive at a deeper emotional connection between us, the writers, and the characters in our stories. The true stuff of life, our hard earned emotional experience which has burnt its way into our subconscious, and made us into who we are. This time around I would like to go deeper into my own experience of enquiry about the main character of my novel. A protoganist which was as far away from my own personality as I could possibly imagine. Or so I thought initially. But more importantly I would like to break down my process of enquiry into some more manageable steps and conclusions. So others might hopefully take away something of value from this.

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Panacea – The Movie

PANACEA - dark sci-fi drama - Novel 2017 - Movie 2018

"After an unexplained malfunction, Renata, an Artificial Intelligence parent/mother, is sent to A.I. group-therapy in order to see if she is still fit to be a surrogate mother for her troublesome Kamil. But events take an unexpected turn when Renata discovers the true nature of who she really is."

A child made to order – The Novel

Novel - Psychological Drama/Thriller - OUT NOW - Publishing house: THE BOOK FOLKS

“When an investigative journalist’s search for a missing woman turns up illegal gene therapy treatments, she has to choose if she wants to reveal the story publicly or fulfill her lifelong desire of being a mother. “

Please support Storygeist

We strive to deliver rich & worthwhile content while attempting to break some boundaries when presenting this to you, the reader. It takes an immense amount of time to deliver this at this high a level. It is also costly because of the server space, domain, the image stock materials, and the necessary tools for html coding, in order to push the boundaries even further.

If you enjoy the content here, please consider making a Paypal donation to us, as a token of your gratitude, and to keep us going. Deep appreciation for your help!